Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) traveled south yesterday in attempt to defuse a controversy that is threatening to engulf Greater Tainan, one of the party’s staunchest strongholds.
Greater Tainan Mayor William Lai (賴清德) has suggested that earmarks for local councilors to grant for construction projects should be tightened as part of the municipality’s austerity measures to resolve a NT$100 billion (US$3.4 billion) deficit.
The proposal has attracted broad opposition from city councilors including the Non-Partisan Political Alliance, which had instead advocated for an increase in the amount given to rural lawmakers, to match the sum available to their urban counterparts.
The belt-tightening measure, which could shave hundreds of millions of NT dollars from the city budget, left the DPP-led Greater Tainan council grinding to a halt last week, with three provisional council sessions adjourned early without conclusion.
Councilors have accused Lai of suggesting that the earmarks were connected to allegations of corruption and called on the mayor to apologize.
However, Tsai’s visit shored up support from the 27 DPP -councilors of the 57-member council, although several independent councilors led more than 100 protesters in a rally outside.
Calling Lai’s measures “a reform,” Tsai praised the DPP councilors for coming together in support of the beleaguered mayor and also called on independent and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) councilors to come back to the bargaining table.
Lai, who on Tuesday met President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), said both the president and Premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) had spoken in favor of his changes, saying that they believed the earmarks were a privilege and not a right.
“As both Ma and Wu support Lai’s reform, the KMT should ask that its councilors come back to the council so that it can engage in a substantive review of the city budget,” Tsai said.
Questions over the construction earmarks first arose after Tainan city and county merged in December following the special municipality elections.
Previously city and county councilors were given NT$20 million and NT$5 million respectively per year.
Lai has said he would like to change the arrangement so that the fund would only be accessible by request, rather than entitlement, calling it a belt-tightening measure.
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